Love planetary science? Dying to explore Europa’s oceans? Meet the man who can make it happen.

This week U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, announced he would not run for reelection in 2014. This move makes Houston Republican John Culberson the odds-on favorite to replace Wolf and become chairman of an appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA.

I have a story in today’s paper that outlines why this is a powerful position, and explains how it is likely to benefit Johnson Space Center. But Culberson’s interest in space go far beyond Houston. He hates the asteroid-retrieval mission. Has strong views about China. And you couldn’t ask for a more ardent proponent of planetary science. Particularly Europa.

Here are excerpts from an interview I conducted with Culberson on his views about space.

What’s NASA doing now that you don’t like?

First and foremost NASA needs to be de-politicized and given stability to allow them to focus on what they do best. They need the ability to build rockets and spacecraft the way the Navy builds submarines, with multi-year procurement, with contracts extending for a long enough period of time that the engineers and scientists working on them can do so with confidence that the rug will not be jerked out from underneath them, as has happened on so many occasions. The agency should be driven by scientists, engineers and astronauts rather than politicians. It’s always destructive for the NASA budget to be filtered by politicians.

There’s so much more to NASA than just jobs and politics. One of the things I hope, if I’m fortunate enough to be re-elected by my district, and then able to become the new chairman of this subcommittee, my top priority will be to reshape NASA to give them more independent, and less political, and give them greater stability, then give them the money they need to actually accomplish their missions. And then get out of the way. To me the gold standard is the decadal survey, that is really the way ideally the entire space program ought to be run. On the planetary science side they have the best minds in the field get together, hash it out for a time, and then come up with their top priorities over the next decade. The same thing could be done for human missions. We should be doing what the scientists think is important, rather than what is good for a particular congressman’s district.

Culberson is an ardent conservative. Here’s he’s flinging a copy of the Affordable Care Act into a crowd. He’s also a science geek. (AP)

What do you think about the proposed asteroid-retrieval mission?

It’s not gonna happen. I don’t detect much support for it in Congress and frankly I’m disappointed that they would come up with this. I love NASA. I’m devoted to NASA. But I don’t think pushing a rock around space is a productive use of their time and scarce resources.

NASA is a huge strategic asset to the United States. It grieves me to see the NASA that I grew up with in Houston, and love and admire so much from the time I was a little kid in West University, with my telescope and listening to and watching the Apollo missions, and landing on the moon and these incredible feats of adventure, reduced to pushing a rock around in space. It’s embarrassing.

Do you think NASA should, instead, focus on returning astronauts to the moon?

Yes. Absolutely.

Why?

The place the Chinese landed (note: he’s referring to the Chang’e 3 lunar lander), I understand from talking to friends in the scientific community, is where one of the richest concentrations of rare-Earth metals is on the surface of the moon. The Chinese think in terms of generations and centuries. It was not a randomly chosen site. It was not done simply for the sake of Chinese nationalism. This was a strategic move on their part to attempt to lay claim to, and in the future exploit the mineral resources of the moon. They have already locked up nearly all of the rare-Earth elements on Earth.

So do you support Rep. Wolf’s policy that prevents NASA from working with the Chinese space agency?

Yes. We need to keep them out of our space program, and we need to keep NASA out of China. They are not our friends.

One of the things you’re really passionate about is planetary science. Why is that?

I am absolutely devoted to all of NASA and all of its missions. But the reason I’m particularly energized about the planetary science program is that they tend to get neglected. They don’t get the funding and attention from the legislative side that the manned program does. The breadth and depth of the planetary program is just extraordinary.

There’s more water on Europa than Earth. Culberson loves this illustration. (NASA/Kevin Hand)

Like me, you’re particularly passionate about one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa. Why?

I’m certain that there’s life elsewhere in the universe. And I’m also certain that the first place we will discover life on another world is Europa. It will be discovered in the oceans of Europa. And it will be a robotic mission designed and flown by NASA that discovers it. About an hour and a half ago I got off the phone with Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic. We’ve become friends through my interest in science. He wanted to be remembered for something other than the discovery of the Titanic. So I introduced him to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and told him he should get involved in the Europa mission. I think he should help design a penetrator, swimmer, sniffer that would punch through the ice of Europa and find and photograph life in Europa’s oceans. I think it’s going to be a match made in heaven.

If I’m successful in becoming chairman of the subcommittee that’s going to be right when the Europa mission will need its maximum funding. It needs to be a flagship mission. The biggest and best we’ve ever flown. I really feel blessed. I feel like I’m one of the luckiest people on Earth. I’m blessed with a wonderful family, a great district, representing Houston in the greatest state in the greatest country in the world. I got on this incredible committee where I will be in exactly the right place at the right time to be able to help turn NASA around, to not only preserve America’s leadership role in space, but I also hope to be a key part in discovering life on another world for the first time. We’re only going to have one chance at this in our lifetimes. We’ve got one shot. I want to make sure you and I are here to see those first tube worms and lobsters on Europa.

27 Responses

Culberson, ” I’m certain that there’s life elsewhere in the universe. And I’m also certain that the first place we will discover life on another world is Europa”.

No need to explore any more, he has all the answers.

One of the big problem with politicians is that a fervent one can have too much influence just because he or she has specific likes and dislikes. It worked out well when Kennedy said we would put a man on the moon. It remains to be seen if Culbertson has any good ideas. Or will he just get us further into debt with misguided notions?

No question Culberson is a conservative. Very much so. Hates the ACA. Opposes federal funding for local light rail projects in Houston. But he will spend money on things he’s interested in and that includes science. Especially planetary science.

Culberson voting against expansion of Houston Metro rail projects has allowed for increased costs when projects proceed because of higher population density and more scarce land. Dollars are not conservative in that.

Same thing all over. So-called conservative politicians are anything but conservative when it comes to handing out billions in taxpayer money for fossil fuel subsidies & pet projects & whatever else gets them reelected instead of what helps the working class.

I do agree with Culberson that planetary science needs the funding and support to execute a flagship mission to Europa.

Someone who wants to be the subcommittee chairman, though, should already be aware that the NRC is already doing an equivalent of the Decadal Survey for human spaceflight. Their report is due to come out next year and was mandated by Congress in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act.

He should also know that Stone Aerospace, headed by one of the world’s expert cave divers, Bill Stone, and headquartered here in Texas, has already been working on diving robots for NASA and even tested them in Mexican cenotes too dangerous for humans (DEPTHX) and frigid Antarctic lakes (ENDURANCE). Stone is now working on the successor cryobot, VALKYRIE, which would serve as a prototype for the Europa mission robot.

While I laud his enthusiasm, Culberson needs to put some meat on the bones to make serious space policy. He also stands in direct opposition to the scientists he says politicians should get out of their way when he advocates an isolationist policy against China.

my top priority will be to reshape NASA to give them more independent, and less political, and give them greater stability, then give them the money they need to actually accomplish their missions. And then get out of the way.

If he holds to this, then it will be a major improvement for NASA (and the US in general). But I’m willing to bet that it will change the moment that NASA proposes doing something that he doesn’t like (e.g., the Trojan Tour and Rendezvous from the decadal survey).

{Ballard} wanted to be remembered for something other than the discovery of the Titanic.

Actually, SciMike, it would give a quantum boost to NASA programs, the space industry, & robotics should pop stars start advocating sincere support for space science & engineering to their adoring young fans, since asteroid mining & Europa explorations & Martian adventure tours are bound to be a very big part of their brave new world.

What an intelligent species like us needs is to work together with all comers to gang-tackle the really big existential challenges like interplanetary space travel & precipitating climate change.

“China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by up to 45 percent by 2020. Shanghai launched a carbon market on Tuesday and Beijing follows on Thursday.”

“In total, the seven pilot markets in China will regulate around 700-800 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, roughly equal to the annual emissions of Germany, and will cover areas accounting for nearly a third of China’s gross domestic product.”

Reading the blog post and article, Culberson not only gives the impression of being a cold warrior, but one stuck in the 1960s as far as space is concerned. His contention that NASA should build rockets and spaceships “like the Navy builds submarines” totally ignores the fact that NASA building most of its own stuff (such as SLS) is being done at the expense of technology development, leaving us with the same technology decimation policies of the last 13 years. As far as China goes, there is no non-emotional reason not to cooperate with China going forward, as our allies are increasingly looking to do. Those that do will likely to be able to accomplish some things they otherwise could not; those that refuse to will likely find themselves alone out in the cold with ever shrinking capability, as everyone else cooperates with the (soon to be) largest economy. I don’t know who advises this gentleman or what he reads, but he isn’t looking at the big picture with regards to either NASA or China.

“First and foremost NASA needs to be de-politicized”. The words of congressman Culberson of Texas.

This statement means leaving the analysis and selection of goals and mission selection to experts, to “the best minds” as stated by Rep. Frank Wolf. For decades, NSF/NRC, the Decadal Surveys as Culberson mentions, has been a mainstay in the decision and selection process for the robotic missions that Culberson admires so much. Yes, allow NSF/NRC to continue and allow them to select the course of human space flight.

Culberson is asked about Asteroids and the Moon. He states, “No asteroid re-direct mission”, “Yes, absolutely, return astronauts to the Moon”. What happened to his and Wolf’s great words of allowing experts to select goals and missions for both SMD and HEOMD? Yes, congress must choose the funding level of NASA but de-politicizing means getting out of this – no to this, yes to that. The two yes and no answers in this interview are political. They involve what will happen to Orion and SLS and what will happen to the House majorities primary adversary’s mandate for NASA to explore an asteroid with astronauts. And I do not believe the White House should be excluded from not keeping their hands in selection of missions.

Hardly veiled from these calls for “return to the Moon” is the fact that SLS and Orion are trying to be saved. Culberson, Wolf, Brooks (AL), the House subcommittee, H.R 3625. Sure every engineer, every worker would love to have a stable job for years. Politicians have not made this possible for NASA engineers and managers. In the time taken by Constellation and SLS/Orion, American commercial ventures have overtaken SLS and Orion. Like with the great robotic missions to study the Earth and beyond, there is a course that will provide taxpayers with the biggest bang for the buck. Congressman, stop wasting taxpayer money with a rocket and capsule – SLS and Orion, that will handicap the NASA we love. Lets keep the great engineers and managers in Houston and Huntsville and at the Cape but lets put them to the task of building hardware that is beyond the means of commerce and provide America what is purely NASA – to discover and explore. NASA human resources focused on SLS and Orion can be turned to doing truly great things — conceiving, designing the hardware that commercial launch vehicles can lift to explore space. This has been the recipe for the Science Mission Directorate (SMD), forever. SMD, the crown jewel of NASA, has provided incredible missions of exploration to the edge of the Solar System, Space telescopes and surveys and monitoring of our Earth — using commercial launch.

While Rep. Culberson is right on, “…NASA needs to be de-politicized”, he and congress must halt NASA from burning American tax dollars with SLS and Orion. I am sorry to say that two more projects must be halted for the sake of NASA and taxpayer funds, the funds that Republicans so dearly want to save and use wisely. $Billions are at stake and a decade of exploration by NASA. NASA can now do what it does best – explore, with mission designed using commercial launch vehicles.

One thing about China. They do not have a sudden grip on all Lunar natural resources. Also, there is strong arguments that near-Earth asteroids will be cheaper to exploit and return e.g. rare-Earth metals to the Earth than from the Moon. NASA should return to the Moon but with autonomous and remote robotics that do some pathfinder mining work and also create the first Lunar Base (followed up with astronauts arriving). These are objectives attainable with less costly commercial heavy lift vehicles.

NASA should return to the Moon but with autonomous and remote robotics that do some pathfinder mining work and also create the first Lunar Base (followed up with astronauts arriving).

That’s pretty much the plan that Spudis proposes. He thinks that it will cost about $88 billion (2010 dollars; $94 billion in 2013 dollars) with a peak funding of $6.65 billion (201 dollars; $7.11 billion in 2013 dollars, or roughly 40% of the FY2013 NASA budget). I just don’t see that large of an increase happening in the current fiscal environment. (Don’t get me wrong – I think that NASA deserves that much of an increase; they just won’t get it.)

Unless we are willing to sacrifice some other part of NASA (or boost NASA’s budget by making larger cutbacks in other programs), it just won’t happen.

John, thanks for pointing me to that paper. I’ve read the abstract and digesting the details now. Let me digress a bit. I wonder and ask the question – what is in our future that will upend and surprise us like what the technology at the beginning of the 20th Century did to our grandparents?

I think the answer is a combination of the telecommunications that binds every person in the World together and also the commerce that develops from the Moon and asteroids. I’ve done quite a bit of reading on asteroids and their prospects. I am inclined to believe that mining asteroids is economically more feasible than the Moon. The two primary reasons why are 1)Delta-V to reach and return from NEAs is much lower than the Moon, 2)asteroid material is overall richer and of a consistency that is easier to process than Lunar regolith. Let me point you to the John Lewis talk at SETI on asteroids as a raw material. Lewis is now the chief scientist for a Texas concern – Deep Space Industries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWGxIDPrlCk

But commerce is not the intention, not in the mission statement of NASA. But NASA can and should undertake missions that pathfind and evolve technology that commercial efforts can exploit. “Spin offs” and NASA does have them. Around 20 or 30 years ago, that was a first question – what are we getting from NASA besides Tang. I think no one today would argue that there are many spin offs – technologies that with the shear knowledge from exploration, makes NASA very valuable.

So what do we do with the Moon? I agree that it can function as a means of testing methods for developing the first Martian outposts. However, Mars Society and others do argue that you do not need the Moon as an interim to send humans to Mars. But it can function in this sense and at the same time explore the potential that the Moon has for minerals, fuel production and establishing a long duration lunar base as described in Spudis and Lovoie’s paper. However, with limited resources NASA and international partners will be stretched to undertake both Lunar and Martian programs at the same time.

This brings us back to the bottom line of what Brooks, Wolf and Culberson are grabbing at. They want to continue SLS and Orion and save jobs. If those two programs continue to first launches, they will severely handicap NASA’s budget and delay availability of heavy launch vehicles for missions. The strain (and delays) on the NASA budget from those projects will make returning to the Moon very difficult while trying to maintain the rest of NASA in a healthy state. Culberson claims to love NASA. Getting politics out of HEOMD as he describes is excellent but finishing SLS and Orion will be a blot on his record.

Had the Spaniards foreseen the potential of the new World, would they not have piled huge portions of their resources to dominate the Americas? Not even the Brits had such foresight. Electronics & robotics have displaced a lot of human workers but the new World waiting in Space represents a future economy that is nearly void of humans; just robotics. There is short-hurdle cost to kick start the space-based economy but it is a real one and in order to jump it, we will have to use NASA’s budget wisely, more wisely than we have in the last 30 years (Shuttle, ISS). And it has to be a coordinated effort between the best in US industry, NASA (public funds) and international partners. But the funny part of this unfolding story is that 50 to 100 years from now, space industries will have their own economics based on robotics not humans. The economics will be off the scale that exists on Earth and at the same time tied to the Earth economy. It will begin to disrupt industry back on Earth. The question of Asteroid or Moon materials will eventually be a moot point because the economics of the Space industries will be off the Earth scale; it will eventually transform the World’s economics. Lunar processing might cost twice or thrice what asteroids cost but for the mechanisms doing the work, it will be inconsequential. Yet, in the mean time, there are limited resources and politicians meaning well but short-sighted.

I am inclined to believe that mining asteroids is economically more feasible than the Moon.

I agree with you, as do many others and would add that there are more and more interesting scientific questions that asteroids could answer than can be answered by the Moon. However, there are (as you later note) four very different plans for our future explorations. And all of them are currently mutually exclusive due to budget constraints.

The two primary reasons why are 1)Delta-V to reach and return from NEAs is much lower than the Moon,

Delta-V for many NEAs is lower for some NEAs, but not for all. A great resource for deciding which NEA you want to visit is NASA’s Near-Earth Object Human Space Flight Accessible Targets Study. If we restrict ourselves to a round trip that lasts less than a year, has a delta vee of less than 6 km/s, and includes a stay at the asteroid of at least a week, then there are 79 different known places we could go.

2)asteroid material is overall richer and of a consistency that is easier to process than Lunar regolith

Some asteroid material is richer. Other is much poorer. Asteroids are highly variable both in terms of location and in terms of constitution. An essential first step to any asteroid mission would be a long-term observation plan, similar to the one that Planetary Resources has started.

Good to have someone who strongly favors missions to Europa which could lead to an Earth-shattering discovery of life on another world.
There is disagreement among space advocates about a return to the Moon. But I happen to favor it. By doing so we can use its resources to also mount more easily missions to asteroids and to Mars.

The writer of this blog is being a one trick pony with this topic. He seems ready to fully embrace giving more power there in Washington toward one single minded goal (pump NASA back up) while being willing to completely overlook the fact that the intended recipient of this additional power has demonstrated over and over again a propensity for strict adherence to arch Republican conservative strictures on how we all can go about conducting our own personal business here in America. As with most Republicans the concept of compromise and working together with those of other perspectives to further the common good is an anathema to him.

I for one and not ready to sell out my options as a citizen so someone like John Culberson can get his hands on more power in Washington and therefore be able to throw more dollars at NASA.

With Congressman Wolf preparing to relinquish the helm of NASA appropriations, we need to rethink the wisdom of elevating yet another backwards-looking hardliner as our best choice to get Sino-American extraterrestrial cooperation off the ground in the 21st Century.

“The restrictions on U.S.—China cooperation in space are counterproductive. They punish well-meaning Chinese scientists and engineers and abet Chinese hard-liners who oppose cooperation every bit as strongly as Mr. Wolf. Lack of normal contact between the U.S. and Chinese space communities increases mistrust and misunderstanding, forestalls cooperative research that could benefit both and does little to curb China’s technological development.”